The development of linguistic translation theory in Hungary

Linguistic translation theory in Hungary emerged rather late (for the reasons see Bart and Klaudy 1996), and its development cannot be considered rapid, either.

This is due to several reasons, of which we shall mention here only two: the isola­

tion of Hungary from the international research community, and the lack of a centre coordinating and financing translation research.

Still, in 1973, with the establishment of the Interpreter and Translator Training Centre (ITT C) of Eötvös Loránd University, and the launching of postgraduate training for translators and interpreters at the Centre, linguistic research on trans­

lation started. At the beginning, these research programmes pursued practical purposes and manifested themselves in the publication of translation course books based on the translation-oriented comparison of particular language pairs.

To co-ordinate the work of researchers working at different universities and colleges, the Translation Theory Section of the Applied Linguistics Working Com­

mittee of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences was formed in 1983, acting as an independent Working Committee from 1990 until 1996. The Committee organ­

ised seven national conferences, providing opportunities for Hungarian translators and teachers of translation to share their views with each other on translation related topics. The proceedings of these conferences were published with the title Fordításelméleti Füzetek I-VI. (Papers on the Theory of Translation). The Com­

mittee co-ordinated research in the country, and made efforts to develop ties with the international community of translation scholars.

The development of theoretical work in the field is marked by a series of Ph D.

dissertations in translation theory (Klaudy 1981b, Pongrácz 1983, Dániel 1984, Lendvai 1986, Bendik 1987, Albert 1988, Cs. Jónás 1989, Heltai 1992). From the 80s increasing numbers of Hungarian researchers participated at international translation studies conferences, and many translation theory scholars visited Hun­

gary. The isolation of Hungarian translation studies was coming to an end.

One of the important milestones in breaking out from isolation were the two international “Transferre necesse es?9 conferences (November 1992, Szombathely;

September 1996, Budapest).

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7. New trends in translation theory at the turn of the century

The paraphrase Transferre necesse est was created by György Radó, and the first international Transferre necesse est conference was held in his honour on his 80th birthday at Berzsenyi Dániel Teacher Training College in Szombathely. The con­

ference was not a large one, but because of György Radó’s international reputa­

tion, many outstanding representatives of international translation studies includ­

ing Ewald Osers (England), Gideon Toury (Israel), Anthony Pym (Spain) took part, and Eugene Nida (USA), a living classic of translation studies also sent an article to be published in the proceedings of the conference (Kohn et al. 1993).

What is even more important, though, is that this conference brought together those Hungarian researchers who felt a need to join the international research community.

The second Tansferre necesse est conference was held in Budapest in 1996, which was a major international event by all standards drawing participants from all over the world.

Since Budapest does not belong to the most "frequented" conference sites in the field of translation studies, like Vienna or Prague, the organisers did not want to set its focus too narrowly. Therefore, in accordance with the comprehensive subtitle (Current Trends in Studies of Translation and Interpreting), participants could submit proposals for papers in 15 topics: (1) Preparation for EU accession, (2) The present situation of translation and interpreting studies, (3) Sociolinguistics and translation studies, (4) Psycholinguistics and translation studies (5) Text- linguistics and translation studies, (6) Contrastive linguistics and translation stud­

ies, (7) Experiments and observations inT/I research, (8) Quality assessment and consumer needs, (9) Literary translation, (10) Scientific and technical translation, terminology, (11) Business and court translation and interpretation, (12) Media translation and interpretation, (13) The teaching of translation and interpreting, (14) Translation and technology (corpora and machine translation), (15) Trans­

lation and the Internet.

Why was the second Transferre necesse est conference important for Hungary?

In Hungary, because of the overriding importance of literary translation, theoreti­

cal research was conducted for a very long time only on literary translation, despite the fact that - as discussed in previous chapters - in other parts of the world trans­

lation was studied in a much broader perspective, thus becoming a more and more interdisciplinary field of study. Hungarian translation scholars, due to their meagre travel opportunities also missed most of the development in translation studies in the 1970s and 1980s. In this way, the second Transferre necesse est conference had to make up for decades of missed opportunities.

At the beginning of the 1990s, besides the traditional centres of translator train­

ing, most Hungarian universities and colleges launched some form of translator training programme. One of the main purposes of the organisers was to involve as many Hungarian participants in the conference as possible. This aim was fulfilled:

more than 150 Hungarian participants had the opportunity to get acquainted with the latest results of translation and interpreting studies.

Another important achievement was that the volume Translation Studies in Hun­

gary was published by the start of the conference. It was edited by José Lambert, Kinga Klaudy, and Anikó Sohár, containing studies in English by 16 Hungarian researchers (Sándor Albert, István Bart, József Bendik, Erzsébet Cs. Jónás, Pál Heltai, Zsuzsa Láng, Kinga Klaudy, János Kohn, Endre Lendvai, Zsolt Lengyel,

JuditNavracsics, Anikó Sohár, Krisztina Szabari, Zsuzsanna Ujszászy, Zsuzsa Valló, Tamás Vrauko). An important part of the volume is the bibliography listing the authors’ publications in the field of translation studies, and a Who’s Who, con­

taining the authors’ resumes. This volume was the first attempt to inform the international translation studies community about research conducted in Hun­

gary (Klaudy, Lambert and Sohár 1996).

Why was the second Transferre necesse est conference important for internation­

al translation studies? The process by which a relatively new area of study becomes an independent discipline can easily be traced by looking back on at the history of its international conferences, the number of people attending them, the number of sections, etc. For translation studies to become an independent disci­

pline, it is not sufficient to create its own terminology, its own literature, its meth­

ods of research, and to produce its own classics, but it is also necessary to have its own conferences, where its scholars have a chance to meet and be persuaded as well as persuade each other that the field of research they pursue is an important one and has good prospects. It may be symbolic that James Holmes’s paper entitled The Name and Nature of Translation Studies, which even today provides a valid pro­

gramme for translation studies research, was presented at the 3rd Applied Linguis­

tics World Congress in 1972 in Copenhagen. AILA Congresses have continued to include a translation section, but the really important papers in translation studies are now presented at the discipline’s own congresses.

From this point of view, the second Transferre necesse est conference in Buda­

pest was a really historic event in the life of the discipline (Kingscott 1996). The plenary speakers included outstanding representatives of translation studies, such as Eugene Nida, Peter Newmark, Mary Snell-Hornby, José Lambert, Daniel Gile and Geoffrey Kingscott. A year after the conference the proceedings were pub­

lished on 560 pages, containing all the plenary lectures and 82 selected papers (Klaudy and Kohn 1997).

The two Transferre necesse est conferences may undoubtedly be regarded as sig­

nificant milestones in the development of Hungarian translation and interpreting studies. However, the problems of a research centre and research financing are still unresolved, and thus we can only hope that Hungarian translation studies will be prepared by the millennium to be able to contribute, by its own means, to Hun­

gary’s European integration.

Part II.

THE TEACHING